Time-to-market pressure, stringent Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements, slim product margins, and reduced capital equipment budgets may combine to make it difficult for network service providers to provision their networks so as to efficiently process traffic thereon. Because adding resources to increase bandwidth can be expensive, service providers often use existing records, crude line length calculations, and/or manual spot testing techniques to identify problematic lines/ports/channels for the purpose of generating a network-grooming proposal. Network service providers often search for cost-effective solutions that can allow them to automate the process of bandwidth utilization “avoidance” or bandwidth “shifting” to smooth out bandwidth demand and consumption. Even if the cost of bandwidth continues to fall, it may not always be desirable to buy more bandwidth in response to network congestion. Moreover, unexpected spikes in bandwidth usage may indicate an internal or external security threat, such as a Denial of Service (DOS) attack. As a result, simply adding resources in response to peak bandwidth usage may merely be covering up an underlying network problem.